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Sitelen Pona

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Sitelen Pona (rendered in lowercase as sitelen pona, lit. 'good/simple writing',[1] IPA: [ˈsitelen ˈpona]) is a constructed logography used for Toki Pona.[2] It was originally designed circa 2013 and published in 2014 by Canadian linguist Sonja Lang, the language's creator. Most later characters and features were proposed and adopted by the speaking community. Sitelen Pona is the second-most used writing system for Toki Pona after the Latin script.[3]

Sitelen Pona
sitelen pona
"sitelen pona" in Sitelen Pona
Script type
Logographic
CreatorSonja Lang
Createdc. 2013
Published
2014
DirectionLeft-to-right Edit this on Wikidata
LanguagesToki Pona
 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

History edit

Sitelen Pona was designed by Lang in preparation for her upcoming Toki Pona textbook release. In 2013, she published a page listing 20 characters as a sample of the book's contents.[4] The book, Toki Pona: The Language of Good, was published in 2014, and it included the first full description of Sitelen Pona in a dedicated section.[5][2]

In 2024, Lang published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Toki Pona edition), the first in the su series of illustrated storybooks aimed at beginners, in which all Toki Pona text is written in Sitelen Pona. This was the first published book that used Sitelen Pona as a primary script.[6]

Overview edit

Sitelen Pona is typically written left-to-right, top-to-bottom. As a logography, each word is written with a single grapheme. Many of the characters are derived from translingual and universal symbols such as pictograms, road signs, mathematical symbols, and emoticons.[7] They have been described as "mostly easy to recognize, quick to remember and simple enough that even a child could draw them."[2]

A head followed by a single modifier (e.g. a noun followed by an adjective) may be combined into one character by stacking the modifier grapheme above the head grapheme, or by nesting the modifier grapheme inside the head grapheme if there is space.[2] The symbol of the language  [8] is written this way, with the grapheme   (pona) nested inside the grapheme   (toki).[9]

Names edit

 
The sentence "ma Kanata li suli" written in Sitelen Pona. The name Kanata is spelled with the characters kasi alasa nasin awen telo a.

Names (grammatically proper adjectives) are written by enclosing multiple characters in a cartouche shaped like a rounded rectangle. Each character inside represents the first phoneme (or, equivalently, letter) of its word. The specific characters used in a name may be chosen creatively to convey meaning about its subject.[10]

In an alternative system called nasin sitelen kalama, characters inside a cartouche can be followed by interpuncts or dots, where each interpunct represents the next mora of the word, and a colon represents all morae of the word.[11]

Punctuation edit

Sitelen Pona punctuation is unstandardized and thus highly variable, as The Language of Good features only the cartouche.[10] As a result, some texts use no punctuation at all, instead relying on formatting and context.

Sentence boundaries are typically marked with an interpunct, period, line break, or a wide space. Question marks and exclamation marks are often proscribed due to their similarity to the characters for the words seme ( ) and o ( ) respectively.

Where quotation marks are used, CJK-style corner brackets (「...」) and double high quotation marks (“...” or "...") are most common.

Characters edit

The original English edition of Lang's book Toki Pona: The Language of Good introduces 120 hieroglyphic characters, one for each of the core words taught in the book.

The 2022 Esperanto edition of the same book (Tokipono: La lingvo de bono) includes alternative ways to write three words.[12]

The same edition presents characters for the 17 additional words spotlighted as "essential" in Toki Pona Dictionary (nimi ku suli).[13] According to the accompanying text, these were the most commonly used characters for those words as of 2022, but there were still disagreements in the speaking community, and the following characters might be subject to change based on future community consensus.[14]

Notes:

  1. ^ Four-legged (two-leg-stroke) form of akesi
  2. ^ Clarifying that jaki can be written as an infinite variety of scribbles
  3. ^ Secular form of sewi (above, holy) that isn't based on the Arabic word for God, analogous to the character for anpa (below, humble) and other location words
  4. ^ sin-based variant of namako created by the community in 2016
  5. ^ Chili pepper variant of namako designed by Sonja Lang for personal use and first shared publically in 2022

Encoding edit

Sitelen Pona
RangeU+F1900..U+F19FF
(256 code points)
PlaneSPUA-A
ScriptsSitelen Pona
Assigned155 code points
Unused101 reserved code points
Source standardsUCSUR
Note: Part of the Private Use Area, font conflicts possible[15][16]

As of April 2024, Sitelen Pona has not been encoded into Unicode. Unofficially, it is included in the Under-ConScript Unicode Registry since 2022, at the Private Use Area codepoints range U+F1900–U+F1AFF.[15][16]

Sitelen Pona[1][2]
Under-ConScript Unicode Registry
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+F190x 󱤀 󱤁 󱤂 󱤃 󱤄 󱤅 󱤆 󱤇 󱤈 󱤉 󱤊 󱤋 󱤌 󱤍 󱤎 󱤏
U+F191x 󱤐 󱤑 󱤒 󱤓 󱤔 󱤕 󱤖 󱤗 󱤘 󱤙 󱤚 󱤛 󱤜 󱤝 󱤞 󱤟
U+F192x 󱤠 󱤡 󱤢 󱤣 󱤤 󱤥 󱤦 󱤧 󱤨 󱤩 󱤪 󱤫 󱤬 󱤭 󱤮 󱤯
U+F193x 󱤰 󱤱 󱤲 󱤳 󱤴 󱤵 󱤶 󱤷 󱤸 󱤹 󱤺 󱤻 󱤼 󱤽 󱤾 󱤿
U+F194x 󱥀 󱥁 󱥂 󱥃 󱥄 󱥅 󱥆 󱥇 󱥈 󱥉 󱥊 󱥋 󱥌 󱥍 󱥎 󱥏
U+F195x 󱥐 󱥑 󱥒 󱥓 󱥔 󱥕 󱥖 󱥗 󱥘 󱥙 󱥚 󱥛 󱥜 󱥝 󱥞 󱥟
U+F196x 󱥠 󱥡 󱥢 󱥣 󱥤 󱥥 󱥦 󱥧 󱥨 󱥩 󱥪 󱥫 󱥬 󱥭 󱥮 󱥯
U+F197x 󱥰 󱥱 󱥲 󱥳 󱥴 󱥵 󱥶 󱥷 󱥸 󱥹 󱥺 󱥻 󱥼 󱥽 󱥾 󱥿
U+F198x 󱦀 󱦁 󱦂 󱦃 󱦄 󱦅 󱦆 󱦇 󱦈
U+F199x 󱦐 󱦑 󱦒 󱦓 󱦔 SP
STJ 		SP
SCJ 		SP
SLG 		SP
ELG 		SP
SGE 		SP
SRLG 		SP
ERLG 		󱦜 󱦝
U+F19Ax 󱦠 󱦡 󱦢 󱦣
U+F19Bx
U+F19Cx
U+F19Dx
U+F19Ex
U+F19Fx
Notes
1.^ Proposals 2022-01-31; revision 2022-05-20
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

References edit

  1. ^ Coluzzi, Paolo (29 June 2022). "How learning Toki Pona may help improving communication strategies in a foreign or second language". Language Problems and Language Planning. 46 (1): 78–98. doi:10.1075/lplp.00086.col. ISSN 0272-2690.
  2. ^ a b c d Kocman, Tomaž (2023). "Prednosti toki pone kot prvega tujega jezika predšolskih otrok : magistrsko delo" (in Slovenian). T. Kocman. Retrieved 4 April 2024.
  3. ^ jan Tamalu (2024). "Results of the 2022 Toki Pona census". Archived from the original on 1 March 2024. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  4. ^ Sonja Lang (19 May 2013). "hieroglyphs_sample.pdf" (PDF). tokipona.org. Retrieved 29 March 2024. (Date retrieved from PDF metadata).
  5. ^ Lang 2014, p. 104–111.
  6. ^ Lang 2024.
  7. ^ Cerino Jiménez, Rigoberto; Pinto Avendaño, David Eduardo; Vergara Limon, Sergio (26 June 2023). "Pictographic Representation of the Toki Pona Language for Use in Augmentative and Alternative Communication Systems". Computación y Sistemas. 27 (2). Instituto Politecnico Nacional/Centro de Investigacion en Computacion. doi:10.13053/cys-27-2-4418. ISSN 2007-9737.
  8. ^ "Toki Pona – The language of good". Smith Journal. Melbourne, Australia. 2019-06-03. Archived from the original on 2019-10-20. Retrieved 2019-10-20.
  9. ^ Lang 2014, p. 110.
  10. ^ a b Lang 2014, p. 111.
  11. ^ jan Ke Tami (2022-05-05). "nasin nimi sin pi sitelen pona" [A new way to write names in Sitelen Pona] (PDF). lipu tenpo (in Toki Pona). No. 13, nanpa pipi. pp. 5–6. ISSN 2752-4639. Retrieved 2024-04-04.
  12. ^ Lang, Sonja (2022) [2014]. Tokipono: La lingvo de bono (in Esperanto). Translated by van der Meulen, Spencer. Spencer van der Meulen. pp. 116, 117, 120. ISBN 978-94-6437-609-8.
  13. ^ Lang, Sonja (2021). Toki Pona Dictionary. Illustrated by Vacon Sartirani. Tawhid. ISBN 978-0978292362.
  14. ^ Lang, Sonja (2022) [2014]. Tokipono: La lingvo de bono (in Esperanto). Translated by van der Meulen, Spencer. Spencer van der Meulen. pp. 148–149. ISBN 978-94-6437-609-8.
  15. ^ a b Bettencourt, Rebecca G. (2021-08-06). "Under-ConScript Unicode Registry". KreativeKorp. Archived from the original on 2021-09-28. Retrieved 2021-10-23.
  16. ^ a b Bettencourt, Rebecca G. (2021-08-06). "Sitelen Pona: U+F1900 - U+F1AFF". KreativeKorp. Archived from the original on 2021-09-28. Retrieved 2021-10-23.

Publications edit

External links edit

 
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